Programme

Our programme

With many thanks to everyone who has volunteered their time and ideas – from programme participants to people working behind the scenes, to our tireless programme team – our programme is now complete! You can read about our programme philosophy, and some of the highlights, below. If you want to find out the full details, visit our programme schedule page for our online programme guides!

About our programme

Our programme philosophy is very simple: we want to make every single programme item as good as possible. We have items inspired by our guests, items about the hot topics of the day, and items that will come as a complete surprise. We haven’t created any artificial themes, but some are emerging where a subject deserves more than one programme item, and we like it when programme items inter-relate.

The programme has science fiction and fantasy at its centre, but we will also explore the surrounding penumbra of subjects that are related to them and to the interests of SF fans. We want to talk about climate change, gods, cities, fandom, ethnicity, Star Wars, biochemistry, gardens, history, space opera, and fifty other subjects. There will be panels, workshops, games, talks, quizzes, music and fun. For instance, as well as the big events mentioned above, we have talks on Robert Heinlein, the James Webb Space Telescope, the science of toffee, and Ray Harryhausen; we have panels on Utopias, cities, Victorian fantasy and future technologies. We’ll be celebrating Frankenstein’s 200th birthday, the BSFA’s 60th anniversary, and the lives of Brian Aldiss and Ursula K Le Guin. We will remember absent friends and look to the future. We aim to be awesome.

Some highlights

We have close to 200 programme items – large and small, in the morning, afternoon, evening and beyond. You can find out how to get the full details on our programme schedule page. To give you an overview, here are a few of our key events each day:

Friday

2:00pm: Opening Ceremony

5:30pm: TAFF Extravaganza

8:45pm: Jon Boden

Saturday

11:00am: Gilgamesh Reads Gilgamesh

1.30pm: Nnedi Okorafor GoH keynote

3:00pm: BSFA lecture

4:30pm: Kim Stanley Robinson GoH keynote

7:00pm: BSFA awards

8:15pm: Keith Donnelly

10:00pm: Disco

Sunday

10:00am: Eastercon bidding session

12:00 noon: Christina Lake GoH keynote

1:30pm: Hay lecture

3:00pm: Kieron Gillen GoH keynote

4:30pm: Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

9:00pm: Science Ceilidh

Monday

4:30pm: Closing ceremony

The keynote events for our Guests of Honour are concentrated on the Saturday and Sunday of the convention, to make sure that they’re available to the majority of our members. But there will be programme items throughout both Friday afternoon and Monday, including items featuring our Guests of Honour and their work.